Why is Natural Burial/Death a Discipleship Issue?

In this episode, Chris Rivers, Scott Mozingo, and Matt Kelley discuss death, the natural burial process, and the opportunity to care for and disciple members through this unique season. Matt shares how a conversation with his dad, along with several other contributing factors, spurred discussions about natural burial and what it might look like for Grace Church. Born out of the idea that the Church should take care of its people, not only in life but also in death, natural burial is a practical way to live out this principle. Over the course of time, many parts of the death and after-death process have been outsourced. The church, who rallies towards people when they experience every other kind of grief, was taking more of a hands-off approach to the issue of death. Natural burial creates a communal experience, allowing church members to play an active role in the process and tangibly care for people in their grief.

What is natural burial and how does it work in Grace’s context?

• In 2021, Grace purchased a 12-acre piece of land in Piedmont, SC (previously a tree farm) to use as a natural burial site.
• The process for natural burial involves no embalming, no vault, and no casket. It is a simple process in which bodies are placed in a pine box or shroud and lowered into the ground.
• Burial sites are marked with a small stone and the person’s birth date and death date—there are not specific plots, but the areas where people are buried are mapped out by computer software.
• After someone passes away, the body is kept by Palmetto Mortuary (Grace partner) and then transported to the site. Grace volunteers dig the site and prepare the area for burial.
• When the family arrives, the pine box is laying on boards over the hole. The family lowers the body into the ground and actively participates in the burial.

What are the benefits to this type of burial?

• Environmental benefits—keeps chemicals and non-decomposing materials out of the ground
• Reduced cost for families—frees them up to use these resources to do ministry or deploy them in a way that honors God
• Allows the church do what it is called to do—care personally for people in death and meet those who are mourning in their grief
• Allows family and friends to play an active role in the burial of their loved one

Why is it important for our church?

• It serves as a reminder that the world is not our home and death is not something to be feared. It is an outward expression of the hope we have.
• It is an opportunity to take back and reclaim something the church is responsible for in caring for our body.
• In a dark time, the church is able to be there and care for the needs of those they are in community with or serve alongside.
• It allows members to serve in various capacities—digging holes, clearing land, building pine boxes, and many other logistical tasks.
• It is another way to disciple people and ensure we are discipling from birth to death.

• What did you learn about the natural burial process after listening to this episode?
• After hearing Matt discuss the benefits of this type of burial and why it is important for our church, what stood out to you the most? How do you personally think this could be a vehicle for discipleship in our church?
• In your experience, how has the church reached out to you and your loved ones during times of loss?

For people and animals share the same fate - both breathe and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! Both go to the same place - they came from dust and the return to dust. Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. Hebrews 13:14

For more information about natural burial, contact Jennifer Dill at jdill@grace.sc or visit:

https://grace.sc/naturalburial/

Theology of Death Sermon Series

If you have questions about this episode or you have an idea for a future episode, please visit the podcast page and click on "ask Scott." 

Hey there, my name is Chris rivers and I want to thank you for joining us for the grace church members podcast. The goal of this resource is to address discipleship issues in the life of Grace Church and discuss how to be more fully devoted to God in this episode, Scott Mozingo. And I chat with Matt Kelley, who serves as one of Grace Church has staff, governing elders, and you can find him also helping lead worship and some leadership development. In this particular interview, we have a fascinating discussion around death, the natural burial process and the opportunity that we have to care for and disciple members through this unique season born out of this idea that the church should take care of its people, not only in life but also in death natural.

Burial is now a practical way for Grace Church to live out this Principle. As we discussed why this is such a huge discipleship issue. I got really clear on how I can move. And share this idea with others and I'm hoping that you do as well. Be sure to check out our podcast page at Grace Church. S c. org /y. Discipleship on this page, you can access a transcript of this episode and additional resources to help you move.

Okay let's jump into our episode with Matt Kelly on why death and natural. Burial is a discipleship issue. Well Matt good to see you today. Scott was ancient good to see you. Hey Chris, yeah we're going to have a Conversation about some topics that a lot of people have been asking about. I was at the lake this past weekend, at my dad who doesn't live.

Here comes up to me and says we sit at the table he says hey man I hear y'all are burying people and I was like, yes, exact razy actually got to talk about natural burial this weekend. Like it was really great. What are we doing as a church? Yeah.

So several years ago we just start a conversation about what does it look like for us to be able to take care of people and not just Life, but also through death and burial. We knew that we were trying to disciple people from birth until the grave, but once we got to the Grave, we were not involved and we felt like that was something that we needed to explore. And it was a lot of steps that happen with our church at the same time.

But we just decided that we needed to take some steps to save. The someone need to be a part of. And so we did a lot of research and really honed in on an idea of something on natural burial, which means it's simple. Its natural exactly. What You think it is? It's no embalming.

The Vault, no casket. You're basically put in a pine box or a shroud and you are returned. It's very simple process and so it's been something that we are just now dabbling in. We're on year one of this but it has seemed to be a great discipleship tool for us and something that we're learning from every day. Yeah, every step of this way.

So map, a lot of people know you as worship It goes hand-in-hand with your work with do a lot of work with our young staff in addition to that. Yeah, maybe they don't really think about you in this role, right? You've had some real formative personal experiences and you talk a little bit about why you how you got in this game. Yeah yeah so I mean I think seven or eight years ago, our church did a series on death and if the same time we were looking at that and we did a series on that and then we also saw a a documentary on 60 Minutes about something called natural.

Burial had never really heard that but saw that and kind of piqued her interest in the my dad who was a pastor in Seneca for a long time. He's now retired. He was a part of a burial at a place called Ramsey Creek up in Westminster and he came home and he buried, actually, a friend of mine that I grew up with that died, early. And as he got home, and he started explaining it to me about the men, they're taking their jackets off all working together, Barry and Matthew doing all that. His he described it to me when he got done talking about it.

I was like, yeah, that's weird. Like I say this is weird and he goes actually he goes that was very different but it was extremely helpful for Crawford, who was the dad, burying his son, he goes. And that moment Crawford had all these men around him. They were all part of the process. He said, we all six men were standing around Berry and Matthew.

So there were Parts where we laughed. We cried, we talked about Matthew, we were able to console Crawford. He said it was a very communal time and I thought in the moment I was like, okay, that's the church, that's what we've been missing. That's the piece that is very intriguing is to we're in a really dark grief, sometimes, dark sometimes joyful, but a grieving time, the church is there and the people that you've done live with our they're celebrating and crying and remembering and all the people that you want with them.

They're an active participant in that piece and that was the thing that really caught my mind. Yeah. So that personal story was really catalytic for you. It was personally This has been a long process. We've been working on this as a church. Yeah, I think that, I think I had that conversation.

My dad 78 years ago. It just started as digging and we met with. We just thought we would look for some land. We thought we would try to see what it looks like to possibly buy some acreage, and we learned a lot about the burial process. We've learned a lot about the state South Carolina and learned learned a lot about that. And then we actually talk to the people at Ramsey Creek, in Westminster Kimberly, and Billy, they were the pioneers of natural burial.

Or green burial timed in the US. And the right here in EPs and they're in Westminster South Carolina and they are huge proponents and wonderful people to work with and a great resource and saved us from a thousand troubles. I'm doing this, we'll come back to them in just a second because I think there's an interesting distinction between maybe what we're doing and what they're doing, this will help our audience. Yeah.

But the thing about story. Described the process. Like, what happens when someone passes away? Yeah, done this a few times now we have.

So what just help people And how it's not weird. So currently if someone passes away, they contact our church and our care Department kicks into gear, which is who they are. They're great. I Jennifer deal. Sarah, Brandon Lee Ann cabin that crew gets to work. If someone passes away they call us and then we tell them currently we have a partnership with Palmetto Mortuary and right now, they are the partner that is able to pick up the body transport.

You do have to have a burial transport permit. There are pieces we're not able to do currently. They were very happy to partner with us and so they go pick the body up store with us for however long we need, you need to do natural burial. Within five days is about as far as you go because the minute you die, 20 minutes your body starting to Decay. Yeah.

So they do store the body in a freezer for us and then they transport the body to the burial area for us. We dig the hole we have volunteers currently that go out and dig the hole and get everything ready. And get the area ready and set and then Palmetto delivers the body for us and then we put it. And then when the family gets there, the body is there, it is laying on boards, kind of over the whole. And then what happens is during the during the service, it's for the family gets involved. They actively lower the body into the ground.

They put dirt on and that's where you see family. And the last one I saw, grandchildren bearing, the grandma. We've had tons of people just write notes on the pot, Box on the time volunteers are making these boxes. That's right. Yeah volunteers are making the boxes. I mean, it is a very active thing for people in our church, their active participants of burial.

This isn't for everybody. We're just saying this is an option right in some situations. I've heard when someone dies, the funeral home comes in and then they just feel like their loved one is just kind of gone and we wanted to bring that back in where you are. Actively you feel like you were taking care of people that you have done life.

So people might think probably the close proximity Is Graveside service, right? Kind of intimacy at the burial site, right? But this is even more intimate than all of that you live on the bodies in the ground. I mean, a lot of times that funerals I've been to when the service is over you leave and then they lower the body and you are actively returning them to dust, right? You're the active participant at.

So how did we get to this point? What's changed over the last couple of decades? Where it feels like like the church has gotten further disconnected from the burial process. I think just as a natural consequence of there are some business pieces that have happened over the years and there's some pieces where we don't understand what to do.

So we've hate to say I was arrested in some ways, right? But we don't really know what to do professionals at doing this. It's a been a great service to people, but we did feel like for us. And it was one thing that Kimberly from Ramsey Creek, really challenged us on when we were in the room with her, she goes, I mean, This is actually what you're supposed to do. Meaning the church, the church. She gets the church's. Y'all believe in this.

Ya'll believe in taking care of people. All the way to the end. She goes y'all believe in Resurrection. This should be the church. This should be what the church is about. And I remember when she said that, I was like, man, you're right?

That is the true answer. And I think that is something that is clicked for me. And for the people that have been a part of it so far is that this is what we as the church or supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be we're not supposed to release this. Peace, once we get to it, we're supposed to be all hands on deck for the next five days. This is when we're a lie to you, we rallied to you every other time there's a grief or tragedy in your life, why would you not do it in Death?

Yeah. You know I'm saying right? So I think that's the thing that's gotten clear to us is it's a great rallying point for us in that too.

So a nice little gentle rebuke from the folks at ramsbury, Chris. Yeah, I mean very catalytic. It really was. And she and she didn't say in the meantime, she was just like, I mean, of all people. Believe in this one of the things is that we have integrated. I thought process of burial and our minds that we don't even know why.

We think that we question what we've done for hundreds of years and now in the last hundred years, the game has changed. It's a fine thing. But now when I present it to people, there likes weird, why are we doing that?

So even friend of mine, who's a pastor Mississippi, he and I were talking about it when night, he was tell me what you're working on. Is like, well, I've been working on this thing called Or burial. And he's a, what does that? And I told him and he after about two minutes is like I think in Mississippi, you have to be involved. I think it's a law as like I guarantee. It's not as like I live in South Carolina.

You live in Mississippi. I guarantee. It's not and he goes, no, I think it is. I was like, I bet it's not. And so I got an email from him at 3:00 a. m., and he just all the email said was, it's not a long Mississippi, monk.

So, he just said, I went to work and started researching and his point was to me later on, He's like I assumed things that had to be done and I didn't know and so I was just like this what you have to do. He said so like I'm not we're not even educated and we've integrated things into our lives that we haven't even root truly thought through and just adopted. And I think of anything just allows her people just to think and asks a questions about it and then once again interact with the death process, the burial process.

That's one thing that I think it's a real disruptive idea that Oranges those assumptions in an area that people don't want think about. So it's fine. I'll just do whatever you tell me to do and I'll pay the money because I really don't want to engage. Yeah, the whole day. I don't want to think about death, right? And that was Ramsay.

Creaks point is, this is actually what y'all believe in this is your point that your point is, this is when y'all are game, time is in the death process and y'all believe this more than anybody. And so we've a little bit separate herself from something that we say, we fully put our trust in her home. In.

And so it's a little bit of a disconnect that we want to bring back together and reconnect. This explain the difference between what they're doing as a relates to Creation care. That's a part of it. Yeah, probably.

So we have three big reasons why just kind of go through those reasons why this is really beneficial for our church. Yeah, I mean there are different areas and they get real technical. There's a difference between natural burial and green burial. There's different regulations that go on without. There's a different regulations that go with creating a cemetery. There's are all things that I've learned natural means you're returning, green means there's certain things that you're trying to do with the land.

That there's some conservation things that you're working on some of it has to do around the way, your bearing or the way, you are preserving, the land and ours is not real around that ours is more around the care of our people and I don't think there's one more than the other. It's just they have a very different focus on what they're doing and what they're doing is great and if we didn't have this, that's where I'd want to be. Great is it Ramsey Creek, but we are being a little bit more utilitarian to disciple are people.

So they're heavy on the environmental Environmental Conservation. Yes. And we'll talk more about the care for the body. Talk about the cost. That is a. Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, one of the main things that we looked at was right now, the average, which I would say is not at your average, is about 10 grand in South Carolina, which I've not heard of one being 10 grand in well, but that's what's if you Google it, that's the Google.

But we are looking right now at 2000 to 2500 dollars. So if we have 6,000 members I mean think about that. Think about the savings of 8,000, we bury 6,000 people over the next 50, 60 years. Think about the money, they get saved to do ministry that you're not putting money in the ground and it's just a I'm not trying to say it's a financial win but it does help you think about if you believe that you can't carry this with you. Then there is a piece of the yeah, it's a stewardship. It is a straight stewardship issue where you're just like, okay, I can do this.

I believe that I'm not here. I'm going to spend this amount of money to get this done at the same time that deploys resources for other ministry, right? It is a financial stewardship issue. In a major way, there's the environmental piece, there's the financial stewardship piece. Those are two are secondary to the the piece that you've been talking about quite a bit, which is just the care for one another as church members, right? Tell us.

It's a little bit so we've been actively burying. Yeah, for about six months. Yeah, and we closed on the land and summer of 2021 and we thought we would bury one person this year. I would say, through next. Summer is like I will probably want what buried, I think, we buried five.

So it's made us, think about a lot and we've been busier than we don't. So what have you as far as this benefit of the church discipling families. All the way through the burial process. Us. What have you seen? Have you seen that? Really be a benefit.

Well one of the very first ones was a member in Spartanburg his father passed away and his small group, his group of men and his small group helped bury his dad. And one of the small group leaders called me or texted me on the way home and was like, Hey, when y'all first started talking about this, I was like me. What are we doing? This is weird. He said, but I gotta tell ya. He said I've never been a part of anything.

What I did today. He said, if you have anybody have any questions, you send them Spartanburg. He goes, we got a group of men out here that are fully on Bored because they were actively taking care of that man in Spartanburg who just lost his dad and he was like, I've never been able to in a tactile way be able to take care of somebody in that moment, the way I did.

And so we've seen that we've seen people riding them boxes, just writing notes, people that I haven't had anybody returned from one of the burials out there and not be affected or seen the church rally like it and really a lot of them. Die words. They're just like man, I've never seen. Thing like that but I like it. They say it feels right. It feels like what we're supposed to be doing.

When you go out there, talk to us a little bit about the physical. What is the price look like? Yeah, this little bit about. Yeah, firemen right.

Well, it's 12 acres. It was an old tree farm and so there's still lots of Holly's out there. And so, it's a little bit of a mixture of field. Some tree area where there's still lots of trees and look at reform area. And then there is a really nice cool pasture where we're bearing currently. We are the next person in line.

You're not getting plots, you're not. Hey, here's, I'd like to be buried on this tree picking your spot. No, you're really nice. This is very different. We're not selling pre pretty silly. No, I'd like to not do that.

So, yeah, we're burying kind of in a row and people always ask their like wool, how do you know that you're not bearing on somebody else? And we do have a software that Maps out where people are and then you can go to that software. It will basically give you a GPS of where that person is buried. And actually when you type in the GPS, it'll tell you there will be two area if you want to read it through and stuff like that. I mean, all that's not fully set up. That is stuff that's we're working on right now on.

And then we will continue to bury out there. We've had to do a lot of land kind of planning, which is why we tried to slow, play a little bit because we've had to kind of re-establish. A rework, some roads that were already there. There are some holes that from the tree farm that we've had to just we just did a lot of work in the last two weeks and so you can drive by it, not even know it's there but it's It is not a fancy. It's not groomed the graves, are there. There is grass that has grown up around them and but there are lots out there or there, or they marked.

Yeah, they are Mark. There's a little stone with the name and the birth date, and the burial and the death date, and that's it. Probably in a couple of years. The way the earth works, the stones will, they'll be gone. We're not preserving any of that. It's marked right now and you can go find it, but it might be at some point that those just the Earth Eats a stone.

That's kind of how we set it up as we were thinking about this podcast and particular, we're trying to focus on the why, why, why do we, why is this important? So, I mean, what would you want someone to think about God and Creation in all of this? Yes, well, I'm saying about that this morning and I was reminded of Ecclesiastes which tells us we return to dust. I was reminded that we say this Earth is not our home and we can't carry it with us.

So, I was thinking about those two things and then I was thinking about, I believe in the resurrection, I believe in those things that don't make me. Hold onto this world a man. It's hard because I love this world. I struggle to not want to call this world, my home and at the same time when I go out there, I am reminded that this is looking for something in the future that actually will be way more rewarding and if I believe all those things then I won't hold. The things and I'll be okay. We're just saying you know?

However, you'll need to bury me under my control. I'm good, I'm good for us to roll with this, you know, and I'm good for my resources to be left my family to do ministry. I'm good for you, not to spend a lot of time and go back. And have to remember me a bunch because I'm actually not there.

And so there are a lot of those things that just feels unique to me. The other things you need to me, is that it's going to be a unique place where People that we have all done Ministry with, for a long time. We're going to be buried together. They're one of my volunteers, that was digging holes for me. He's the one that actually brought that up. He said, when I got done digging that hole the other day, I was out there and he said I just thought in the moment, he's a young guy, 25, two, young kids, and actually 28.

But two young kids and he's like man I just was thinking the other day, he goes men and women that I have done Ministry with. I'm gonna be buried with these people right here and I never really understood Church cemeteries hundred-year-old Archie sees Church, cemeteries laid out there. And I was like, why did they do that?

But it's because the church used to handle, right? Death and Burial at the family. The family have a family plot. You have all the family together. Your church was an active participant in that and it's a little bit of returning to that returning. To again, this is why this is important for us as a church.

So, there's a care component, being able to really love each other all the way to the very end. There is a connection to the temporal nature of this world. Yeah. And then I love what you said about the resurrection of just being able to look forward to something. And it feels like if we disconnect, if we pull up, just short in the burial process of taking it all the way to the end, that maybe we miss some of those key markers that really connect us to God. That is, that is so true.

It is something where if you look at the ministry we're doing it did feel like a disconnect for us that we were getting to a certain point even as we that strives that Julie Eldred has With seen your honor. Then once we get past that, then what do you do? Are we as a church obsolete, then I just did not feel right to us. Right?

So we felt like we needed to have a part of it. Yeah, it feels like a real healthy. Correction of some unintended consequence. Yeah, have just developed over the last several decades. As we're all a lot more transient, we don't have the small rural church with the cemetery plot like this for my screw-up with that's right. And this has brought a topic back into our mind, but I think is really great.

Great, right? And I mean the thing is whenever somebody comes to us, we always tell them. This is an option. We're not saying hey, you got our church, you got to do this because for some people, it's okay. It's just an option is something that we want to give them an option to do. Yeah.

Yeah. So what do people do, if they want to find out more if they have questions, if they're interested in volunteering? Yeah, it's interesting. We had a meeting the other day with just an initial meeting with about a little over 50 people that came. It said hey we want to volunteer everyone from working on the land because the land has to be but shocked every six weeks and grass cut and real tactile things like that to. We have a group that is currently building our caskets.

We have a group that is making sure routes currently we have not buried anybody in a shroud but that is an option and is your over there. Either way. They should probably just reach out to Jennifer deal who's in charge of our care. She has been collecting all those people. And then we've got Volunteers running all that. We've got volunteers, running the casket building, we got a volunteer run in the Shroud building we got volunteers digging holes.

I mean, it is, it is people that, I mean I had a guy the other day just say, hey, thank you for letting me serve this way. I'm getting to serve people and I didn't know this was going to be it, but this has been real rewarding for me, which I thought was an interesting take on what he was saying.

And that's another way they answer the. Why question? Chris, that's another reason why this is important, is it brings in all these volunteers draw. Them in closer to their Devotion to God, by being able to serve people in some unique ways. That's right, that's right. Yeah.

That idea of being able to do that with just a handful of other men that I know, and I'm getting to serve a family that has lost someone or I'm having my very close friends, help me navigate a very hard season. I remember my brother passed away many, many years ago, and that was just difficult for a family that loses a small. A child or a grandparent or this is an option for them to not just a financial stewardship option.

But it's also just a chance to Rally together and care for one another in a unique way that we don't always have a chance to do that, and you can get plugged into community group, you can do life with people and you can get to know people and those are great things. And I think this is another way for us to rethink what it looks like for us to serve one another absolutely in a very, very difficult space. That's right. The two young guys right now that have dug our Graves for us. They do not know the people, I call them and I'm like, hey, we had somebody passed away in our church.

The funeral is going to be in four days and a day later, I'll just get a picture of the whole duck. There's no questions there. Just like we are just serving the people are just serving whoever this family is, we don't need a bunch of details. We're ready to go. Yeah, and it's a unique thing. Yeah it is.

I remember Matt Williams when we first started talking about some of this, he told a story to us. Some staff and he mentioned, you know, he's trying to cast a vision and capture our imagination is just imagine a couple that is newlywed and very young in their marriage and loses. Their child, think about the challenge that, that could be for them financially. Think about the challenge, this is a chance for us as a people to Rally around a couple like this sin and to do something that it. No one would.

I mean, that's amazing. I mean, I remember what he told me that story and I was just imagined the way that we can love people really well. And I'm just really excited to see what happens as we do this month after month, year after year. And we have maybe you could I know you shared the first person that passed away and buried.

But have we buried children have? I mean, could you talk a little bit more about that or how? Because we have other people that we bear we do we have not buried any children yet, it's all been people that are later and seasons in life which for all those a lot of them have been a little bit of a rejoicing. Yeah it's the time of suffering is over.

And so those have not been as I mean I would say as tragic. Yeah. But that's still been unique in a different kind of Celebration. We have talked about like I said we have 12 acres, we have talked about setting up an area, possibly for a young life, lost a stillborn, a memorial or having an area to walk through something like that. And that's something an idea that we're looking at in the future. Once we get our feet under syllabus more, what we're doing, I mean death.

And on all forms. It's not just it's not just the end and so we want to be ready for all of them. If we can just looking forward, somewhat going to have a chapel and put a chapel, we do, we would like to have a chapel out there. Like I said, we have the land for it. We have some equipment out there that has some people have been real gracious with us and donated, some very nice equipment for us to work the land.

But the next thing we do need is we probably need a chapel Barn structure for us to have a service. We would love and it's great. It's not far from our Provost or camp. It's so we're able to do a service there if we need to and then come out there.

But if we could have one area for people to Rally to and do a little service and then do the burial, it would be the ideal that we would want. If you're listening, that's not something you're interested in talking to and helping with Kelly. But yeah, conversation love to have a conversation with you. Matt commission us as leaders. For those of us in this audience, how would you want us to speak about natural barrier of someone asked us about this? Of course.

Now they have a resource. That they can have a conversation with Rod, but how would you want us to speak about this? What would be some tips or just some things to equip us and having conversation with people about this, I think one of the ideas is that the idea around we want to be we want to be discipling are people from birth into death. We want to be a part of every stage of life and all the way into death.

And so I think that's that's a little bit of a different language. We always talk about discipling people in your thinking about during the lifetime but One of the major things you can do to disciple, the family is help them bury their loved ones. And I think that was something that we were not a part of that, we aren't saying that we have it all figured out but we knew we needed at least take a step and get in the game and that's what this is. It's another way to disciple. Our people, we're disciple, are people that are losing their loved ones.

And then the people that get to serve are being discipled, there's the part of it. Yes. So I had a guy that's building caskets for us right now and he wrote down crying the other night. Just told me. Thank you for him building caskets. He was grateful that he got to be a part of it and he does not know these people.

He is just doing it to serve them and he was he called me crying talking about it and I was like meant. Thank you. You're the one actually serving these people and you're thanking me for the opportunity. I was like you're the one actually doing the work but the thing is that guy's being discipled like there's something happening God's working in his heart, the way way, this is going where he is getting to serve people with nothing in return. He's just getting ready to help these people in a very dark time, and he's grateful for it and God's using that to the disciple him.

So Chris, it seems like death is something, obviously, it's an uncomfortable topic. It is. And it feels like it's something that to be endured. And I think just changes the conversation because it's inevitable. It's not something that has to be feared. If you are a follower of Jesus and believe in the resurrection, believe in the new heavens and new earth, so it seems like it's an opportunity to reclaim and Something back and disciple, and help people Embrace, instead of indoor, that's give anything.

So, the point, I think that the church, you know what, I hear Matt say is the church, normalizing the conversation and actually bringing the truth and the hope that we all talked about. But this is like a physical embodiment different way of expressing that hope which I think is going to be real powerful for our church. Yeah. Ever, how long we get to do it? That's right. Yeah.

Well man, this has been great. Matt appreciate it. I mean, is there anything else you want to leave with? Us know, I'm grateful for this opportunity and I'm excited about how this disciples are people in future. I mean that's what it is. Really that's great.

Well thanks again. Thank you. Thanks Matt. Thank you. Well as we wrap up today's conversation, we want to thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcasting channel so you can be updated with each new episode. Also we realize that listening to a podcast Episode can be an individual experience which we believe is only enhanced by talking through it and applying it to life.

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